1. Field
This invention generally relates to music, specifically to an electronic musical instrument with a keyboard and a strummer, capable of reproducing common guitar playing techniques.
2. Background
A musician physically interacts with a musical instrument to select, actuate, articulate, and release musical tones or notes. On a piano, a musician simultaneously selects and actuates a note by striking a particular key. On a guitar, a musician first selects a note by holding a string down behind a fret, typically with the left hand. Some time later, he actuates the note by picking or plucking the string with the right hand. At the time of actuation, a guitar player can select between various timbres of the same note by moving the point at which the string is plucked closer to or further from the bridge, muting it with the heel of the hand, allowing part of the thumb to contact the plucked string (creating harmonics), or other techniques. After the note is actuated, he may articulate it through various techniques, including bending the string, or vibrating the left hand (vibrato). A guitar player may also use two fingers to transition between a first note and a second higher note on the same string by fretting the second note after the string has been plucked. This technique is called a hammer-on. If the second note is lower than the first, the player may pull off a left hand finger, effectively plucking the string a second time. This technique is called a pull-off. Each of the techniques described above creates a unique sound, allowing the musician to create an expressive performance. Although keyboard synthesizers can reproduce the sound of a guitar, it is difficult to reproduce, and alternate between typical guitar techniques on a keyboard synthesizer.
In addition to these techniques, the physical separation of the guitar strings imposes a timing relationship between strummed notes that is difficult to emulate from a keyboard alone, without the use of a strummer. It would be desirable for a keyboardist to have an instrument that uses a familiar keyboard plus a strummer to emulate typical guitar playing techniques.
It would be desirable for a musician to have a single electronic instrument that could emulate real timing, articulations, and sounds of multiple models of various stringed instruments, for example: acoustic, electric, and bass guitars, mandolins, and banjos. In addition to a strummer, such an instrument would require a keyboard, and will be referred to as a keyboard strummer instrument. The keys on the keyboard could be arranged in the manner of a: guitar fretboard, piano keyboard, two dimensional keyboard by the present inventor, or another keyboard. Each keyboard choice would have its own advantages and disadvantages. Prior attempts to create such an instrument have failed to yield an acceptable substitute for the original instruments. For example, MIDI guitars utilize a real guitar and rely on pitch detection to trigger notes in a synthesizer. The pitch detection step introduces a delay that some musicians find unpleasant. Guitarists are instructed not to mute notes or play thumb harmonics, to avoid confusing the pitch detection algorithm. Digital modeling guitars use signal processing to modify the output signal of a real guitar, to emulate another guitar or instrument. Many musicians prefer the fidelity of a wavetable synthesizer, which plays back recorded samples of the desired instrument. Both the MIDI guitar and digital modeling approaches require a real guitar, which adds cost, weight, and size.
Guitars and keyboards are large and bulky in comparison to many portable devices in use today. The area required by a guitarist to strum the strings is small in relation to the size of a guitar. A smaller, more portable instrument would be made possible by the availability of a small keyboard, plus a small strummer.
A downward strumming motion from the top to bottom string is the most natural motion to use when playing a guitar. The top string is the most easily accessed string for picking and strumming, due to the fact that it is easily visible, and not blocked by other strings above it. Practice is required to avoid plucking the top string when strumming a chord. On a conventional guitar, the top string may cause a dissonant note to sound, if it is not part of the desired chord. It is difficult for a musician to locate the other strings by touch alone. Furthermore, when playing a scale, lead, or melodic sequence of single notes, it is difficult for a novice guitarist to coordinate fingering notes on various strings with the left hand, while picking those particular strings with the right hand. The difficulties caused by needing to pick particular guitar strings, and avoid others, are a natural consequence of the static relationship between notes and strings, on a guitar fretboard. An instrument that simplifies picking, while reducing the likelihood of playing dissonant notes is needed.